{"id":14838,"date":"2014-03-18T11:21:50","date_gmt":"2014-03-18T18:21:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/journals\/jed\/2014\/03\/18\/14838.html"},"modified":"2014-03-18T11:21:50","modified_gmt":"2014-03-18T18:21:50","slug":"hugo-nomination-when-we-wake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/2014\/03\/18\/hugo-nomination-when-we-wake\/","title":{"rendered":"Hugo recommendation: When We Wake"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I recently read Karen Healey's 2013 YA SF novel When We Wake<\/cite><\/a> (which is out in paperback today!), and I liked it quite a bit.<\/p>\n

I don't often read books in the year they come out, so I can't often nominate for the novel Hugo. But in this case I did read it in time, and I'll be nominating it.<\/p>\n

It's about a sixteen-year-old Australian girl from 2027 who suddenly wakes up a hundred years in her future, having spent the intervening time in cryogenic storage. There have been, of course, many stories featuring frozen people waking up in the future<\/a>, dating back to at least 1887. But I don't think I've seen one before with a teen girl protagonist, certainly not one I've liked this much.<\/p>\n

This is Karen<\/a>'s third novel; I liked the first two plenty, but I like this one best of hers so far. The characters are compelling, and the narration and dialogue are snappy and regularly funny:\n

\n

“Any questions?” I asked. Abdi opened his mouth. “Any sincere, nonsarcastic questions?” He closed it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The politics—heavily left-leaning, but with some excellent nuances—appeal to me; the romance may not be unexpected, but it's sweet and charming; the book is both thoughtful and fun, and is a fast and enjoyable read.<\/p>\n

I'm mildly dubious about a couple of backstory elements revealed at the end, but that didn't significantly reduce my enjoyment of the book. Overall, highly recommended. And I'm not the only one who thinks so; the book is on the ballot<\/a> for SFWA's Andre Norton Award for YA sf.<\/p>\n

And if you haven't read it, you still have time, 'cause there's two weeks left 'til Hugo nominations<\/a> close.<\/p>\n

(Also nearly two weeks left 'til Nebula\/Bradbury\/Norton voting closes, but I'm not a full SFWA member so won't be voting in that (and I haven't read most of the other nominees anyway), so I'm focusing my awards recommendations on Hugo nominations.)<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently read Karen Healey’s 2013 YA SF novel When We Wake (which is out in paperback today!), and I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[82,19,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-awards","category-books","category-writers"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14838\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}